<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>basis of percentage widths</title>
<style type="text/css">

td { border-width: 0; }
td div { border: 3px inset blue; padding: 3px; }

</style>
</head>
<body>

<!--

  The difference between the border-box width of the table and the width allocated to the columns is:

  2px = table border-left-width
  9px = table padding-left
  25px = 5 * table border-spacing-x
  5px = table padding-right
  2px = table border-left-width
  =================================
  43px

  -->

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="2" style="padding: 3px 5px 7px 9px">
  <tr>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="2" style="padding: 3px 5px 7px 9px">
  <tr>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="2" style="padding: 3px 5px 7px 9px">
  <tr>
    <td><div style="width: 88px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 113px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 113px">x</div></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" border="2" style="padding: 3px 5px 7px 9px">
  <tr>
    <td><div style="width: 33px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 23px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
    <td><div style="width: 38px">x</div></td>
  </tr>
</table>

</body>
</html>
